Clarity
by ewells4
Summary: Post-5.11 One-shot WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS


**That final scene was a punch in the gut, right? So I decided to write a bit of a fix-it. Let's say the very worst happens ("the very worst" being that she is pregnant and yes, it's his), this is a scenario that I wouldn't find completely unpalatable, although I'd probably still come away with mild indigestion. I've got some other ideas, so I may write those up when I have time.  
**

**One more thing . . . I wrote this in present tense, which isn't my usual m.o. I felt like it lent a sense of immediacy to the story and that seemed important. Please forgive any accidental lapses into the past tense (in a few cases, it was intentional). I tried to catch them all, but sometimes things start to look fuzzy during the edit and I might've missed a few.**

**Thanks for reading!**

* * *

"Hey Marlo . . . ."

At the sound of Epstein's voice she turns around, immediately honing in on the small white scrap of paper in his hands. She can only see the back of it, but she knows what it is. Judging from the look of confusion on Epstein's face, he knows, too. Marlo silently chastises herself for being careless enough to leave it out in plain sight. She certainly hadn't intended to expose her secret now after guarding it so closely for months. Her psychiatrist would probably say she should give herself a break and that even the most focused person could become distracted while dealing with a bombing and an apparent suicide.

"Marlo?" Epstein says again, flipping the paper around so that she can see the front. "What's this?"

"It's nothing," she answers curtly, swooping across the room and swiping it out of his hands. As she hastily tucks it into her bag, she scans the office nervously and allows her eyes to reluctantly settle on his again.

"Are you pregnant?" Epstein asks uncertainly, and she can easily read what he's thinking. On his face she sees astonished skepticism combined with a tiny hint of well-masked scorn. And this is just Epstein. If any of the others find out, she fears their reactions will be far less subtle.

"Just forget about it. Promise me you won't tell anyone," she insists, feeling desperate enough to bargain with him as she hurriedly gathers her belongings in preparation for flight.

"Marlo, who's the father?" he urges, and she tries not to feel affronted by his persistence. After all, she considers Epstein a friend of sorts, and she knows that his questions are undoubtedly motivated by his loyalty to McNally and by extension, to Sam.

"Epstein, just promise you won't say anything."

"Is it Swarek's?"

"I've gotta go," Marlo stammers as she slings her bag over her shoulder and walks swiftly toward the door. Chancing a parting glance at him, she issues a silent plea for understanding and discretion before turning away and rushing down the stairs.

* * *

With the exception of accidentally blurting out the truth to Chris after a few rounds at the Penny one night, a full week passes and Dov somehow manages to hang onto Marlo's secret. In a way, it helps that she hasn't returned to the station since he found the sonogram, but her sudden removal from 15 also forces him to wonder what's going on in her absence. He knows that if it's true, she can only hide her condition for so long, and he imagines her looking increasingly more pregnant with each passing day.

Such are the thoughts that plague Dov as he hovers in front of the coffee station one morning before shift. With very little focus on the cup in front of him, he absently whips milk into his coffee with the practiced hand of a guy who's been making two to three cups of the stuff every day for five years.

When a tall figure steps up beside him, he barely registers the newcomer until a voice says, "Hey, man."

The sound of Chris' voice forces Dov's attention back to the present. "You want one?" he offers, pointing at the cup on the counter in front of him.

"You're offering to make me coffee?" Chris laughs.

"Sure. Why not? I'm in the zone, so you might as well take advantage of it."

"In the zone, huh?" Chris looks at the counter skeptically, no doubt surveying the coffee splatter in the general vicinity of Dov's cup. "If that's what you want to call it . . . ." Shaking his head, Chris flips an empty cup off of the stack beside him and passes it to Dov. "So I saw on the roster that you and Andy are riding together today."

"We are," Dov confirms, keeping his eyes focused on the coffee he's stirring.

"Are you gonna tell her about Cruz?"

"Haven't decided."

"You need to say something," Chris advises him.

"It's not that simple."

"Sure it is. Andy's one of your best friends. Dov, she's one of us. You owe it to her. Think about how you felt when you found out Chloe was married. Wouldn't you rather save Andy from being blindsided like you were? And what about Swarek? Don't you think he deserves to know if Cruz is pregnant with his kid?"

"I get what you're saying," Dov concedes, turning to face Chris as he hands off the cup of coffee. "I just can't get past this feeling that I'd be breaking a confidence—that it's Marlo's secret to tell."

"You don't think Swarek already knows, do you?"

"No way," Dov says immediately, shaking his head as he sips his coffee. "He would've told Andy."

Dov looks down at his cup and sighs. "Don't get me wrong . . . I agree with you. Andy does need to know about this. They both do. Something like this could really mess with what they've got going. And technically, I didn't promise Marlo I'd keep her secret."

"What's going on?" Andy asks suddenly from behind them. When they turn toward her voice, she's standing just inside the doorway. Unable to utter anything intelligible, Dov merely regards her with a blank stare, wondering how much of the conversation she actually overheard.

Finally, he mumbles, "Nothing. It's not a big deal. Ready to go?"

"Sure," she agrees warily. "Just let me grab a coffee." As Andy hesitantly steps up to the counter, she surveys Dov with a measured gaze.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, he announces, "I'll meet you at the car." He swallows the lump in his throat and edges toward the door, pulling Chris out with him as soon as her back is turned.

"How much did she hear?" Chris asks anxiously as they make a fast escape toward the parking lot.

"Definitely the last part," Dov surmises. "Maybe you should switch with me for today."

"No thanks. I'll pass. Just think of this as fate dropping the ball into your court."

As it turns out, Dov doesn't have to worry too much about Andy confronting him because the first part of the day is filled with back-to-back calls. By the time things settle down and they're into the second half of their shift, he's managed to convince himself that perhaps Andy's forgotten about what she overheard. After all, busy or not, she hasn't mentioned anything and it seems like it would've come up already if she were concerned about it.

"Can I just say, these are some of the best donuts I've ever eaten?" Andy confesses as she munches on a donut they picked up at their last stop. "Why can't every call happen in or around a bakery?"

"You do realize you're a total cop cliché, don't you?"

"Yep," she says as she licks the sugary glaze off of her fingertips. "These things are _amazing_." Andy shoves a white paper bag across the car at Dov and dangles it near him expectantly. "Come on. You know you want one . . . ."

Reluctantly, he sticks his right hand into the bag and pulls out a pastry smothered in bright pink frosting.

"Not that one." She smacks his hand away, and he drops the donut back into the bag. "That one's for Sam."

"Swarek likes pink-frosted donuts?"

"No way," she laughs. "But it'll be fun to see his reaction when I give it to him."

"You two seem happy," Dov notes, casting a quick glance in Andy's direction before redirecting his attention to the road.

"We are. Things are really good with us right now," she admits happily. "Of course, it helps having Marlo back at headquarters and out of our lives again."

"It's never easy to work with the ex," Dov notes with forced casualness. He's not even remotely comfortable with the direction the conversation seems to be taking.

"You worked with her a lot on the McDonald case," Andy observes. "How did that go?" Her gaze rolls across his face speculatively, and that's when Dov realizes she definitely heard enough of his conversation with Chris to know that he's withholding something about Marlo from her.

He begins to wonder if he should just give up and let her smoke him out. "It was okay. She knows her stuff, and she's good at her job."

"She can be kind of a closed book, but working closely with her, you must've gotten to know her better . . . ."

"I guess," Dov says, squirming uncomfortably in his seat. He considers pulling over for a bathroom break—anything to get away from Andy. He's seen her in action and knows she can be ruthless when she's working over a witness who's being less than truthful.

She aims a shrewd look in his direction. "Actually, you and Marlo have always seemed to have a good rapport. She trusts you. I mean, besides Sam, I'd say you're one of the few people she actually connects with at 15."

"I don't know that I'd go that far . . . ."

"I would," she contends, eying him in a way that suggests she's almost ready to pounce. "I think she considers you a friend. You know, a kindred spirit, someone who won't judge . . . maybe even a confidante." She raises her eyebrows at the last part.

"Okay, fine. I'll tell you," Dov groans, feeling like a cornered suspect. He knows she's only going to keep whittling away at him, and he reminds himself that Andy really does need to know what he saw.

"Tell me what?" she asks in a tone dripping with false innocence. She settles back against the seat and regards him with a satisfied smile.

"I just want to point out that the reason I didn't mention anything sooner is because I was trying to do the right thing, whatever that is. But look, if it's true, it's only a matter of time before you find out anyway," he rambles.

"What is it, Dov?" she asks impatiently.

"I was helping Marlo clean up some case files after we finished up with the McDonald case last week and I picked up this paper off of the desk where she'd been sitting."

"So?"

Dov pauses, regretting that what he's about to tell her has the potential to screw up her relationship with Swarek. He can only hope that if they're as solid as they seem, they'll be able to handle the news even if the worst turns out to be true. "It was a sonogram."

Andy stares at him, clearly waiting for more, but he already knows she grasps the implications of what he's saying. "She's pregnant," she finally utters, cringing as the words leave her lips.

"I don't know for sure. All I know is she was carrying around the scan and she didn't deny being pregnant."

"Is the baby Sam's?" she asks in a choked whisper.

"Honestly, I don't know. When I asked her, she looked really uncomfortable, though. She picked up her things and took off."

"So yes," Andy concludes. After that, she's quiet—eerily quiet. Across the car from Dov, she's motionless with her back positioned rigidly against the seat and her head facing forward.

They pass through intersection after intersection in complete silence until finally, Dov says, "I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you. I just know it's not a secret that can stay under wraps for very long if it's true, and I don't want you to be caught off guard the way I was with the whole Chloe-Wes thing. It's not a fun position to be in."

"Yeah, I get it," she responds absently.

"Nothing's definite," he reminds her. "It's been a while since they broke up, right? How long's it been?" He's hoping that maybe they can rule out the possibility that the baby is Swarek's simply on the basis of timing.

Andy blows out an extended breath as she considers the question. "I don't know. I think things were fading between them toward the end, and I'm not sure there was an actual breakup other than when he got shot and she disappeared."

"So it's been four, maybe five months if you consider that things were shaky between them before the shootings?"

"Yeah," she mutters, but he's not even sure she's paying attention to him as she stares out the front windshield looking listless and flattened.

"Andy, are you okay?"

Her attention snaps back to him quickly. "I just found out my boyfriend's ex might be pregnant with his child, so I think I'm gonna go with 'no' as the answer to that question," she tells him. Dov hears the tremor in her voice and wonders if she's going to crumble.

"Do you want me to take you back to the station?"

"No," she answers immediately, forcing a smile. "We've got a shift to finish. Let's finish it."

* * *

"Your place or mine?" Sam asks, settling in behind the wheel of his truck and turning the key in the ignition. He shoots a quick look at Andy. He's been watching her since she came out of the locker room, and he knows something's not right.

For one thing, she's hardly looked at him, and as much as the emotional distance bothers him, it's the physical separation that's even more pronounced. Across the truck, she's leaning heavily against the passenger door, blandly regarding the moonlit parking lot with a vacant stare. When Sam clears his throat to get her attention, she slowly turns her head toward him. "Doesn't matter. You decide," she responds in a lifeless tone before turning away again.

"Okay. Mine it is," he says easily, trying to keep the mood light. For several seconds, he allows his eyes to linger on her before putting the truck in gear and backing out of his parking spot.

The normally short ride to his house feels much longer than usual, due almost exclusively to the unnerving silence that's hanging between them. Sam keeps his eyes trained on the road ahead, clueless when it comes to the abrupt change in Andy's behavior. That morning, things between them had been great. She was laughing, joking, happy . . . . As he thinks back through their day, he realizes he first noticed the shift in her mood after she and Epstein got back to the station. She'd seemed flatter and definitely distant.

"Are you okay?" he finally forces out, trying not to sound overly concerned, as he pulls up in front of his place.

"Hmmm," she murmurs, leaving Sam to wonder if she means "yes" or "no."

He's almost afraid to push further for fear that he might not like what she has to say, but he needs to know. In the past, they might have left things like this, festering just beneath the surface to flare up at some later time. But one of the rules inherent to Sam and Andy 2.0 is that they talk about things, and he kind of likes that about them. He knows she does, too. So he braces himself for whatever she might have to say and forces the issue. "You're not okay."

"No." She unbuckles her seat belt and slips out of the truck, pushing her door closed with a lackluster thud that doesn't even have the heart to create a respectable echo in the quiet street.

An unsettling feeling trails closely behind Sam as he follows Andy up to his front door and slides the key into the lock. When the door swings open and he steps back to let her pass, she makes one smooth, continuous line from foyer to bedroom, stopping only to toss her bag on a chair before sitting down on his bed. With a frustrated sigh, she shifts around and pushes herself back against the headboard, extending her legs along the length of the mattress as she lets her head fall back against the wall. From experience, Sam knows she'll break eventually—probably sooner rather than later. So he settles on the edge of the bed and waits, resting a casual hand on her calf as he watches her expectantly.

_Finally_, she cracks. With a strained, yet determined edge to her voice, she manages to ask, "When did you and Marlo break up?"

"What?" He raises an eyebrow at her, choking back an uncomfortable laugh. Of all the things he might have expected to hear from her, Marlo Cruz's name was not one of them.

"Just a general time frame," Andy persists as she stares up at the ceiling. "Doesn't have to be exact."

"You know the answer to this," he reminds her, wondering where the conversation is going. He's willing to play along, but he hates the idea of dredging up the past when things have been going so well for them.

"Not really. All I know is you got shot, and then she was gone."

"That's right. So what was that . . . four months ago?"

"How about before that? Were you two solid up until everything blew up with the Ford case and you got shot?" she questions him weakly, and Sam feels himself tense in response to the coldness in her tone. Gradually, a sense of foreboding begins clawing at him in spite of his best attempts to keep it at bay.

"Andy, look at me," he demands. He wants to see her face so that he can try to get a read on what she's thinking. As always, it's a long shot, but he's gotten better at reading her and he wants to use his new-found skills to his advantage. When she slowly lowers her head and meets his gaze, he sees pain and fear in her eyes. "McNally, what are you asking? You don't really want to hear about this, do you?"

"No. I don't," she admits with a shrug, and to Sam, the sadness that rolls off of her is almost stifling.

"Then why all the questions?" he insists in a heightened tone.

Andy drops her head back against the wall and lets out a strangled sound that comes across as a peculiar fusion of a whimper and a groan. Drawing in a deep breath, she mutters, "I think she's pregnant."

He stares at Andy blankly as the unwelcome disclosure washes over him. "Why do you think that?" he asks hastily, barely hearing himself above the deafening static in his head. As he looks at her in astonishment, he feels the panic rising inside of him.

"Dov saw her sonogram last week when she was working on the McDonald case," she recites in a dispassionate tone. "Apparently, he found it on her desk and when he questioned her about it she got really uncomfortable. He asked the inevitable question, and she didn't deny it." She lowers her head again, staring at him with eyes devoid of their usual warmth. "Sam, the timing lines up."

He forces himself to take a calming breath. "Okay. Okay. So none of this is definite. We don't know anything for sure. She might not even be pregnant. And even if she is, we don't know if it's . . . ." He tenses, realizing that he can't even bring himself to vocalize the thought.

"Yours," she finishes with a heavy sigh. Andy sits up straight and slides her legs down onto the floor beside his. Turning to look at him, she tilts her head and with a great deal of resignation, says, "You need to talk to her."

"Yeah," Sam agrees hoarsely. As Andy shifts uncomfortably beside him, he instinctively knows she's preparing to leave. Every part of him recoils at the prospect of her walking out the door and he grips her arm lightly, wanting to keep her there but not wanting to spook her. "Andy, this doesn't change anything," he tells her cautiously, tamping down the desperation that threatens to bubble up to the surface. "No matter what happens, this doesn't take away what we have."

"I should go," she says, and he sees the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"No."

"Sam, just let me go. For now. I need to be alone," she insists, swiping at her eyes as she stands up.

He's on his feet immediately, stepping into her path to block access to the door. "No way. You're not walking out that door." He glances apprehensively over his shoulder at the bedroom door before whipping his attention back to her. "McNally, I know what you're trying to do. You're pulling away."

Sam can already see her shrinking away from him. She even takes a small step backwards, bumping the edge of the bed with her calves. Tearfully, she forces out, "This isn't the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be you and me—not you, me, Marlo and a baby."

"We don't know anything," he reminds her evenly, attempting to appear calmer than he is.

She runs a hand through her hair and laughs wryly. "This is it."

"This is _what_?"

"The other shoe," she tells him bitterly as the words tumble out of her mouth. "I've been waiting for it to drop. Because, you know, it was bound to happen right? Things were just going too well."

"McNally," he says, grasping her shoulders. "Just stay. We'll figure this out—no matter what."

"I need to go." She shakes her head and looks down at the floor. "Please. Just give me some space. I need some space." She steps to the side, and he lets his hands fall away from her, knowing that he's powerless to keep her from leaving if she's determined to go.

As she passes by him, Sam averts his eyes. His heart can't take the pounding that would necessarily follow from seeing her walk out the door. "Let's say it's true," he reluctantly hypothesizes, still unable to look at her. "Does that mean you're never coming back?"

"I don't know what it means. I just can't think right now," she says, becoming increasingly more agitated and emotional. "All I know is that the future looks a hell of a lot different than it did when we woke up this morning."

"Fine. Do what you need to do," he sighs helplessly as he hears the telltale creaking of the door frame behind him. He assumes she's lingering, and he imagines her turning around to look back at him one last time before making her escape.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says weakly.

Even though he isn't looking, he knows the second she's gone because everything around him seems empty. Feeling deflated, Sam sinks down to the edge of the mattress, wondering how his entire future changed in five minutes without him being able to stop it from happening. With a sobering acceptance of the reality he might be facing, he falls back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling in hopeless confusion.

* * *

The next morning the sun has barely crawled above the horizon when Sam pulls into the parking lot at headquarters. Marlo was always an early riser, so as he watches the door of the building with mounting anxiety, he expects to see her approaching at any second. It's not that he's eager to have the unavoidable conversation with her. Sam just knows that the only way to get his life back on track is to confront Marlo and find out what's really going on.

He registers very little surprise when after only fifteen minutes he sees her car pass through the gate to the parking lot. Sitting up straight, he takes several deep breaths before forcing open his door and beginning the short walk across the lot toward her car. Before she even shuts off the engine, Sam is standing beside her door, leaning on the adjacent car with his arms folded resolutely across his chest.

As Marlo opens her door and lets her feet fall to the pavement, she stares up at him with a look of mild surprise. Her expression quickly morphs into one of understanding, though, and Sam figures she was probably expecting him at some point.

"Can we talk?" he asks with the edgy forcefulness of a guy coming off of a sleepless night spent in the clutches of denial, anger and confusion. Clearing his throat, he softens his voice and adds, "Please."

"Epstein, right?" She rolls her eyes and purses her lips, quietly shutting the door as she leans back against her own car. "I'm surprised he held out for a week."

"What did you expect to happen?" Sam questions her, furrowing his eyebrows in frustration. "It sounds like you're holding onto a pretty big secret, Marlo. It was bound to come out eventually."

She sighs in apparent resignation and squares her shoulders. "Sam, it's not what you think."

"What do I think?"

"I'm not pregnant."

As the words cross her lips, a wave of relief crashes down over him. Some tiny part of Sam hates that he feels so incredibly relieved to hear that she's not carrying his child. But the largest part of him only feels reassured that his first child will be his with McNally—the way he's always imagined it would be.

Refocusing on Marlo, he notices the rigid set of her jaw and the serious look in her eyes, and it quickly becomes apparent that she has more to tell him. Having experienced the relief that came from her first disclosure, it's with a very real sense of gratitude that he redirects his attention to her, determined to listen to whatever it is that she needs to get off her chest.

"I was pregnant," she slowly confesses. Sam processes the meaning of the words, silently imploring her not to confirm what he suspects. He doesn't want it to be true, but her silence seems to affirm what he already knows—the baby was his.

He inhales and forces the air back out again as he regards her with what he hopes is a stoic expression on his face. In reality, he feels like a panic-stricken teenager. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't even know until after I'd already lost it," she informs him in a flat tone, stumbling over the word "it" in a rare display of emotion. "It was so early—probably two months at most. The doctor did an ultrasound and confirmed what had happened."

"And you decided to just keep it to yourself . . . . Why would you want to deal with something like that alone?"

"Sam, I'm good," she assures him in a controlled tone, reminding him how incredibly detached she can be. "It wasn't like we were still a couple. You had other things going on. You'd just been shot, and there was McNally . . . ."

"Don't bring her into this," Sam responds abruptly. "I'm not going to let you use her as an excuse for not telling me about this. I tried to get in touch with you to make sure you were okay, and you never returned my calls."

"This really was something I needed to deal with alone. The thing is," Marlo reluctantly admits, "it's pretty hard to miss something you never knew you had in the first place. So it happened. I dealt with it. And I moved on."

"Just like that," he notes dryly. "You moved on. But you're still carrying around the sonogram."

"It's stupid, I know. After it happened, my psychiatrist told me I needed to work through it and move forward. And I have. Sam, I swear to you, I really have. The picture was in my bag, and I was sitting there at the desk after you followed McNally down to the evidence room. I pulled it out to look at it for just a second. I wanted to see it and remember that it had been real at one time." She stops and lets a wry smile claim her face. "Then, the bomb went off and I got distracted. I must've left it out on the desk by accident. Epstein found it and got the wrong idea. What was I supposed to say?" she asks, glancing down apprehensively before meeting his eyes again.

"I really don't know," Sam concedes. Noting that Marlo does seem to have come to terms with what happened, he supposes that's the most he can expect from the situation. "So you really are okay?" he asks her dubiously.

"I am," she affirms with a restrained smile. "And for what it's worth, if it had come to more, I would've told you."

"Then okay," he agrees, pushing himself off of the car beside hers.

As Sam stands awkwardly in front of her wondering whether the situation calls for a forced attempt at small talk, she quietly says, "I am happy for you, Sam. I wanted us to work, but we both know it was always going to be her."

He nods his head, thinking about the year before and his fruitless attempts to forge ahead in a life that didn't involve McNally. How he had ever convinced himself that someone else could step into her shoes is beyond him.

"How about you, Marlo? Are you happy?"

"Sure," she acknowledges with a lopsided smile. "I like my new job. I'm lucky to have it after all that happened. I really am doing okay." She puts her hands in her pockets and pushes off of her car into an upright position. "It was good to see you," Marlo says, and he realizes she's silently giving him permission to go.

"You, too. If you need anything, you know where to find me," Sam tells her, knowing he'll probably never hear from her again.

Turning toward his truck, his steps are fast and firm against the asphalt, and he doesn't look back. He needs the distance as an added reassurance that she's not going to call him back and tell him that she is, in fact, carrying his child. When he's safely inside his truck with the door closed, Sam sits frozen in the seat for an interminable amount of time, staring intently at the silver and blue emblem in the middle of the steering wheel without really seeing it. He feels stunned by all that's happened in the span of twelve hours. Going from the prospect of a real future with the woman he loves to an unwelcome reality and back again has left him feeling shell-shocked. He knows he should be sad, and somewhere in the deepest part of him, he probably is. For the most part, though, he can't help but feel relieved—incredibly relieved. He shakes his head slowly and grips the steering wheel with a trembling hand, reminding his body to breathe as he exits the parking lot.

* * *

Sam blows through the doors to the station with the singular goal of finding Andy and setting things straight with her. His step is light and his stride quick as he makes a quick loop through the Barn in his quest to find her.

"Diaz, have you seen McNally?" he asks as Chris looks up from his desk.

"Yeah. She's putting a witness in one of the interview rooms for Traci." Chris' voice fades fast as Sam turns and heads down the hallway.

He emits an audible breath when he sees Andy coming out of the last door on the left. As he approaches her, she easily reels him in with her steady gaze, just as she's been doing since the very first day they worked together. When she looks at him, he experiences a rush like no other, and that's a feeling Sam wants to continue chasing for the rest of his life. Now that she's right in front of him, he feels almost desperate to clear the air so that he can get back to living his life with her as soon as possible.

"Hey," she says quietly. "We need to talk."

"We do," Sam readily agrees. He hadn't known what to expect when he saw her, so he's pleased to find her relatively calm and receptive to hearing him out.

Without preamble, she steers him across the hall to an observation room and pushes him inside, closing the door behind them and leaning against it.

"McNally, I—"

"Just listen," she admonishes him, stepping forward and silencing him with several fingers over his lips. She drops her hand and watches him intently, leaving Sam wondering what's to come. When she finally starts speaking, it's abrupt, fast and typical McNally. "I didn't sleep at all last night," she admits, letting out a strangled laugh. "Mostly, I just wallowed. It was pretty pathetic, actually."

"I didn't sleep either." He wants her to know that his night was just as sad and desperate as hers and that if nothing else, at least they were together in their misery.

"Sam, I meant everything I said," she sighs. "I really did. This isn't an ideal situation, and it's not even close to the future I imagined."

Sam opens his mouth to interrupt, but she silences him with a minute head shake. He thinks he should probably go ahead and tell her about the conversation with Marlo, but he's interested in hearing what she has to say, and he wants to give her a chance to talk if she's willing.

"So I was sitting there, and I just felt so _angry,_" Andy continues. She wrings her hands in frustration, eventually balling them up into small fists and letting them fall to her side. "Then I felt miserable. And that was followed by a period of time when I was angry _and_ miserable. Eventually, as the shock started to wear off, I mostly just felt empty and alone. It wasn't a good feeling."

Suddenly, she reaches for one of his hands and grasps it in both of hers. "Sam, I don't want to spend my life feeling empty and alone, and as much as I liked where I thought we were going, I guess I'm willing to re-adapt that picture as long as I don't lose you altogether. If you want me around, I'm willing to try. I'm not saying I won't suck at it, because I probably will. But I'll give it a shot," she offers, allowing a rueful smile to touch her lips.

Sam stares at Andy with a curious intensity. Hearing her express confidence in what they have leaves him feeling something akin to euphoria infused with a dose of mild disbelief. It isn't what he was expecting, but it's still really good to hear.

"I talked to Marlo this morning," he finally tells her.

"You did? Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"You told me not to talk."

"But that was before I knew you'd already talked to Marlo," she groans impatiently. "So what happened?"

As he considers the best way to explain what Marlo told him, he thinks about how close they came to having an entirely different conversation. "She was pregnant, but she's not anymore," he explains carefully, feeling awkward in his explanation.

Andy's shoulders fall and a strangled noise emanates from somewhere deep inside of her. With wide eyes, she breathes, "She lost the baby. Is she okay?"

"She says she is. It's been a few months, and I got the impression that she wasn't very far along. She didn't even know she was pregnant until after it happened."

"Why didn't she tell you?"

"You know Marlo," he remarks dryly. "She's not exactly forthcoming. I think she just wanted to deal with it on her own. And it seems like she has."

"It must have been horrible for her," Andy notes, and Sam is surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"Yeah," he agrees, recognizing that anything he says will probably sound paltry and insufficient.

"Are _you_ okay?" she asks, searching his eyes.

He breathes in deeply before confirming, "Yeah. I'm okay. I feel like I should be more upset, but mostly, I'm just relieved."

"Me, too," she says in a small voice. "I'm such a terrible person for feeling this way . . . ."

"Andy, you're not a terrible person," he assures her. "You're human."

"I guess so," she sighs, inching toward him until her face is so close that he can feel the warmth of her breath against his skin. "I meant what I said, by the way. No matter what, I'm not going anywhere, but I really do prefer for our future to be all ours."

"I do, too," he agrees, kissing her lightly.

"And for the record, that future includes at least three kids, a dog and a house with a big backyard."

"How big?" he asks skeptically. "I don't want to spend my life on a mower."

"Well, we need room for a sandbox, a doghouse, a swing, a sliding board, maybe an inflatable pool and probably a basketball hoop."

"McNally, that's a pretty long list."

"It's what I want," she says with a shrug and a serene smile. Slowly, she slips her arms around his neck and melts against him. As Sam tightens his arms around her waist, she whispers, "And I want it soon."


End file.
